Frameworks · 6 of 8

Dan Harmon's Story Circle

Eight steps for an episode.

Where it comes from

Dan Harmon, in essays for Channel 101 (from about 2009), compressing Campbell and Vogler into eight words on a circle. Used on Community and Rick and Morty.

Who uses it

American television writers' rooms, comedy especially, where a 22-minute episode needs a complete story. Also used for short films and single chapters.

What it is good for

Best for episodes and short pieces with one character who goes somewhere and comes back. The circle is the same shape as the Hero's Journey; the difference is scale and the insistence that the change be small and true.

The stages

1
You
The top of the circle: the familiar. Harmon's rule is to make the audience identify quickly; "you" means the viewer as much as the character.
2
Need
A desire, a lack, a question. It can be trivial (a better parking space) as long as it is felt.
3
Go
The threshold. Harmon draws it as crossing from the ordered top half into the chaotic bottom half.
4
Search
The road of trials, compressed. The character becomes a little different in order to get what they want.
5
Find
The goal is reached, or something like it. Often the moment things look best and are about to look worst.
6
Take
The cost. Getting the thing has consequences; something is lost, and the character learns what the want really was.
7
Return
Back across the line, up into the ordered world, carrying what happened.
8
Change
Harmon insists the change be modest: a lesson learned, a relationship adjusted. Next week the circle turns again.

Seen in

Rick and Morty, almost any episode
Morty wants something (Need), goes through the portal (Go), adapts (Search), gets it (Find), pays horribly (Take), comes home (Return), and is slightly wiser or more damaged (Change).
Community, "Modern Warfare"
Jeff wants a nap (Need), wakes into the paintball war (Go), learns the new campus rules (Search), reaches Britta and the prize (Find), loses her and it (Take), returns to the study group (Return), changed a little (Change).
Groundhog Day
Harmon's own feature example: a whole film as one turn of the circle, with the Search stretched over hundreds of repeated days.

Try it

Add these 8 stages to your film as plot beats

Start your film

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